


Suitcases and Jigsaw Puzzles

by ahrent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Human AU, I tried to write angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahrent/pseuds/ahrent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean shows up at Sam's doorstep with a suitcase at his side, because sooner or later, he always leaves. It's just never been this hard before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suitcases and Jigsaw Puzzles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [archerdork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/archerdork/gifts).



He calls Sam from the porch of his 'white picket fence, nice neighbourhood, disgustingly adorable'-two story house. The pop music he can hear playing inside echoes through the phone and Sam says:  
  
"Dean? What's up, man?"  
  
"I'm outside your house, could you open the door."  
  
There's a pause and Katy Perry sings canon with herself.  
  
"You didn't tell us you were coming to visit." Sam says, and Dean can't quite decide if he's suspicious, surprised, or pleased.  
  
He can hear the music being lowered, and footsteps approaching, and so doesn't bother to answer.  
  
"Dean?" The door opens.  
  
Sam is still holding his phone to his ear. He's wearing a dirty, flowery apron that looks ridiculous on his gigantic frame, and has his hair tied back in a pony-tail. His cheeks are flushed red, from happiness or exertion, Dean can't tell.  
  
He's not happy now.  
  
He looks at the suitcase at Dean's feet and lets his hand fall to his side. When Dean opens his mouth to explain or – something, Sam's fist connects with the side of his face.  
  
"What is going–" Jess says, and appears at Sam's left shoulder. "Oh."  
  
Sam is shaking out his hand, Dean's jaw is aching, Katy Perry moves into the refrain, and the suitcase sits, large as life, at his feet.

\--

He looks at his hands, resting in loose fists on the rough material of his jeans. Jess clears her throat, and Dean looks up, then looks down again. The windows behind the sofa where she's sitting with her face as crossed as her arms, shine orange and red in the afternoon sun, and her hair is a halo around her. She hurts to look at, for more than one reason.  
  
Cabinets and drawers are slamming in the kitchen. Heavy footsteps marching back and forth across the tiles, silverware clang together and the faucet is turned on at full capacity and then, so hard the pipes groan in protest, turned off again.  
  
Dean's suitcase leans against his armchair, every dark crack of the leather thrown into sharp relief in the warm, orange, light of the living room.

\--

He stares at the wood beams of the ceiling when Sam stomps into the room. The clang of the tray being set down is like a crack of thunder, the air rushing out of the sofa cushion as Sam sits is a gale. His silence is the loudest thing in the room.  
  
"So." He says, and then nothing more.  
  
Dean's legs feel too heavy, his arms feel too short, his hands to large. He is like an abused jigsaw puzzle, who no one bothered to put together properly.  
  
"You left." Jess says.  
  
"Yes." Dean agrees.  
  
His voice is as unused as it pushes it's way out of his throat. He doesn't know if he spoke too loudly or if he whispered. He wonders why no one considered that he might have been forced to leave. But he doesn't wonder really.  
  
"Why?" Sam asks, and if he is sad, angry, or disappointed, Dean can't tell. He can't look at him to check. He doesn't want to know what he'd find there.  
  
He wishes there was a clock in the room.  
  
"Because it was the right thing to do—"  
  
"Bullshit." Jess says.  
  
Dean glances at her. He still does not look at his brother.  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
"What, are you saying he wanted you to leave?" Disappointed, Dean decides. His brother is, most of all, disappointed.  
  
"… no–" He says.  
  
"Then why the hell did you do it?" Maybe angry is the answer. Maybe Sam is most of all angry. "Why the hell do you always–"  
  
"Maybe he didn't want me to leave now, but trust me, this is saving everyone a lot of–"  
  
" _Trust you_?" Sam asks, and yes, angry is definitely the answer. "You weren't going to do this, not this time, not after everything, not to _him_."  
  
Sad. Sam is sad.  
  
Dean looks at him. He's not wearing the apron anymore, but there is a fine layer of flour on his left cheek.  
  
"It's for the best."  
  
"Bullshit." Jess says again.  
  
" _Dean_." Sam says, and nothing more. Just that, just his brother's name, as if every single thing that is wrong with this can be explained in that one word.  
  
Dean thinks he might understand that.  
  
"You don't get it." He says.  
  
"Then why did you come here?" Jess asks. Her face is hard but her eyes are wet.  
  
"I thought you might be on my side in this." His fists clench around the arms of the chair.  
  
They sit quietly then, Dean's gaze fixed on his brother's left knee, their's unblinkingly on his face.  
  
"I am always on your side." Sam starts. "Every single day, whatever happens, I am on _your side_. And with this? Right now? Being on your side means standing against you, at Castiel's side, and that's exactly what we'll do."  
  
Dean stands. "I'll be in the guest room." He walks out of the room, up the stairs, and closes the door behind him.  
  
In the living room sits Sam, head in his hands, disappointed, angry, and sad. He says: "He was the best thing to ever happen to Dean." and Jess, with her arms crossed tight over her chest, nods. There is a tray of cheery, multicolored, untouched cupcakes; and a leather suitcase.

\--

He wakes in the middle of the night to a frantic banging at the front door. His hands clench involuntarily in sheets that smell wrong and feel wrong, and he sits up. The banging continues, and light from the hallway streams suddenly in from under the door. He can hear Jess and Sam making their way down the stairs, murmuring unintelligibly.  
  
He pulls on yesterday's jeans and walks, shirtless and barefoot, out into the hallway. As he starts down the stairs, the banging stops and Castiel says "Where is he?".  
  
He stops and then jerks forward, like when a TV-screen freezes and the sound is still coming out but all you can see is a frozen expression, an abandoned movement, until the satellite catches up and the picture moves again but the scene has changed and you only have half the information.  
  
Jess and Sam are standing in the doorway. Sam is still holding the door, as if preparing to shut it. Or open it wide. Behind them is ruffled dark hair, trenchcoat, and angry, blue eyes.  
  
"Did you call him?" Dean asks, looking at Sam, who looks back, face blank and unforgiving.  
  
"No, I didn't."  
  
Dean looks at Jess. She crosses her arms over her tank top and says, "No, I didn't."  
  
"You ass." Cas says, and forces his way past Jess and Sam, walking straight up into Dean's space, but does not touch him. Dean thinks about abused jigsaw puzzles again. Maybe they're both pieces, and they just don't fit together. Cas' shoulders are shaking, but his eyes are dry. "You do not get to do this, you do not get to walk out and not come back. How long have you had a suitcase in your car? How long have you been planning this?"  
  
Dean looks at the fading red mark not quite hidden by Cas' collar. He thinks about his teeth scraping over that stubble, darker than it's been in a while. Cas hasn't shaved in the twelve hours since he left. He thinks about those hipbones pressing into the inside of his thighs. He thinks about those lips pressed against his fingers. He thinks about–  
  
"Dean." Cas says, and he sounds wrecked, under the anger. Dean feels like he's falling apart, like the mangled edges of the puzzle can't quite hold on anymore.  
  
"It's for the best." He says, and it sounds empty even to him.  
  
He can see Cas shaking his head out of the corner of his eye. "After everything. After everything this is what you do? I have not asked for anything. I have given you everything and asked for nothing in return, but _this_? Walking away without a word or an explanation, you do not get to do that. Not anymore. Not ever."  
  
He should have left earlier.  
  
If anything, this was what he wanted to avoid. He did not want to see the look on Castiel's face, didn't want to carry another broken heart in his suitcase, certainly not this one, never this one.  
  
"You son of a bitch, you should have _stayed_." Cas says, and Dean realizes that at least some of that had been out loud. There are rough, calloused hands gripping his neck now, and a forehead pressed to his. "You are– You are wonderful. You are the best man that I have ever met, that I will ever meet, but you are a _fucking ass_. You could have just stayed. You could have talked to me. Dean."  
  
He feels fabric under his hands before he knows he's moved. Then his hands are under coat and shirt and pressed against bare, warm back and he's shaking his head but not saying anything because if he does he knows, he just knows, that he's going to cry.  
  
Cas' hand moves to the back of his head and clenches in the hair there until Dean can't shake his head anymore, so his shoulders shake instead.  
  
The hands guide his face to a warm, solid neck and lips touch his ear and the rough voice that has said 'I love you', 'I love you', 'I love you', is like coming home.

\--

"I tried." Dean says. They're so wrapped around each other, swaying in the hallway, that he isn't sure whose hands are where, can't quite tell who's wearing the trenchcoat anymore. He thinks about the jigsaw puzzle. Castiel is warm and rough and soft under his hands and he has left so many people but he has never, ever, wanted to go back. Has never been that selfish. But Cas is warm and rough and soft and his voice is like coming home and he didn't let Dean leave.  
  
"I know," he says, "I know." Then; "and now you try a little more."

The suitcase sits, carrying broken things, in the next room.


End file.
